Yeah, you should go sometime, if you don’t mind the extreme heat anyway.
by ??????????
Red stepped back from the cave entrance, unable to hear anything that was going on inside of it now.
“Fuc-”
The ground began to shake even harder, causing him to start to fall over, but he managed to keep his balance. It didn’t subside after a few seconds though. The face of a nearby cliff started to collapse, broken stone crashing onto the beach. It was time for him to either find another way to escape the island or die with it and everyone else there.
Hours ago, he started out trying to kill someone he once considered a close friend and now, that had all changed. He hoped that Gojinn managed to get out of the cave and escape the island too. And hope was all he could do for Gojinn now. Well, he supposed that he could try to find a way to swim back into the cave, but that would take too long, especially since he didn’t know how far he’d have to swim until he found the opening in the water.
He looked up and down the beach, unsure of which way to go. He still had the idea of finding another portal to go through back to his own time. Going back the way he and Gojinn came, to the point on the beach where they first arrived in Atlantis, seemed like the most logical place to go if he wanted to find another portal, but it would be hard to get back that way because of all the gaps that had opened up in the ground, although the other way could be just as bad, if not worse.
Deciding to go in the direction he hadn’t been in yet, Red started to run, or moved as fast and as best as he could anyway. His entire body ached with pain and was covered in sweat and blood, some of it his own and the rest of it belonged to others, including Gojinn. The ground in this direction was slightly less torn up, but he knew that it wouldn’t stay like that for long. Maybe he would even discover another boat.
He hadn’t even gone far enough for the cave to be out of his view yet if he turned around to look at it when another group of soldiers showed up. This group was a lot smaller than the previous ones though and they seemed to be less organized too. The Atlantean army must’ve been running very thin at that point. Red figured that he and Gojinn had to have wiped out at least half of the army during their fighting against them, probably a lot more. Plus, some died by falling rubble landing on them or by plunging to their death in one of the gaps in the ground.
“OHooee'nah teahae-te, ooee-de-kueay-teahn!”
“I’m getting real sick of this shit!”
He brought the ax up and swung it into the chest of the nearest soldier, ripping through his armor, skin, muscles, and organs and breaking ribs. He pulled the ax from the soldier’s chest, blood gushing out of the large, gruesome hole, and turned to slice off the arm of another soldier, blood squirting out at the cutting point and the fingers of his lost arm still wrapped around the handle of his sword. He then struck the soldier in the face with the ax, the blade sinking into it vertically and almost directly in the center of his face. Removing the ax, a line of blood dripped off of the tip of the soldier’s chin and he fell to the ground. Taking down two more soldiers with one swing of the ax across their necks, blood spraying from both throats in unison, he finished off the last soldier just as quickly with a blow to the top of the head with the sharp pointed back end of the ax, punching a hole into his skull through his helmet.
Not wanting to waste anymore time than he had to, Red continued running, going by more opened cracks in the ground and crumbling city walls. There had to be something, anything, to prevent him from going down with this hellhole. But there was still no sign of any other boats and his yearning for a portal to appear was looking more and more hopeless with each passing second. He’d also begun thinking about that if he did use another portal, would it really take him back to his time or would it take him to another time that he didn’t belong in? He was pretty sure that no other time periods could be as bad as this one though.
Suddenly, a gap opened up right in front of Red, causing him to almost run right over the edge of it and quickly getting wider, too wide for him to jump over. He didn’t see a way around it either. It had taken up the whole width of the beach and part of the city too, water flooding into the gap.
“No! NO!!!!!”
He fell to his knees, letting the ax fall to the sand. He was doomed. There wasn’t enough time to find a way back into the city and then navigate a way around the gap. He could almost feel the entire island getting ready to just start completely sinking all at once. He was going to die alone, forever lost in time. Or maybe dead in time was more fitting. Either way, he was fucked. He hoped that Gojinn was having better luck than he was.
He wasn’t as alone as he thought though. Behind him, more soldiers were approaching. Red heard their piece of armor clanging together and stood up, spinning around, ax in hand.
“Ah fuck! Well, at least I’ll go out fighting, even if it’s fighting you assholes!”
He charged at the soldiers. There were about twenty of them. Red didn’t feel like fighting anymore. For a second, he had even considering just letting them kill him, but he decided that he might as well make his final moments count. He began to swing the ax in a semi circle, cutting down five soldiers in just the first few swings. Then, one of the soldiers threw a spear, sending it into Red’s leg at the thigh, causing him to fall to one knee.
“Shit! You bastards!”
Red ripped the spear out of his leg and threw back at the soldier who attacked Red with it, the weapon drilling through the soldier’s chest. His rage was so high at the moment, he didn’t care about the pain he was in, especially in his leg, or the fact that that leg was now bleeding profusely. He climbed back to his feet and took out four more soldiers, sending blood and chunks of flesh flying through the air.
The islands rumbling got even greater and the soldiers suddenly stopped fighting Red, staring at something behind him. He realized this and turned around too to see that another portal had formed right over the gap.
“Son of a bitch…talk about fucking luck!”
Red began running for the portal, completely focusing on it and ignoring everything else. At this point, he didn’t care what time period it took him to. The soldiers snapped out of their gaze and saw that Red was running away from them.
He leapt off of the edge of the gap, nearly tripping, and went right into the portal. A few of the soldiers that chased him tried to jump into the portal as well, but it had already disappeared and they fell into the gap to their deaths instead.
For Red, the darkness and white hot pain was back. He didn’t care about it though. He’d done it. He’d escaped Atlantis.
Red felt his self falling and opened his eyes to see a partially cloudy, bluish-purple sky above him. He then landed, hard, in some tall grass, his eyes closing again. He could feel mud underneath his body. He just laid there for a few minutes, his body burning from the portal again, but he didn’t scream this time. He didn’t have the energy for it.
When he finally sat up and reopened his eyes, he realized that there was a dense fog. It was dawn. In the far distance, he could barely see the elevated section of a highway. At least he thought he could. He was back in his own time. Hopefully. He tried to stand up, but couldn’t because of his injured leg so he just laid back down, eventually succumbing to his tiredness and pain and passing out…